Camp and Trail eBook

Only a dozen miles of tolerably easy travelling now
separated Garst and his English comrades from the
camp on Millinokett Lake, where they were to meet
the redoubtable Herb Heal. The settler, knowing
this tract of country as thoroughly as he knew his
own few fields, offered to lead our trio for the first
half of their onward march; and as they could follow
a plain trail for the remainder of the way, they had
no further need of their guide’s services.
They promised to visit Eb at his bark hut on their
return journey, to bid him a final farewell, and hear
one more stave of:—­

“Ketch him, Tiger, ketch him!”

“Good-by, you lucky fellows!” said Royal
Sinclair huskily, as he gripped Neal’s hand,
then Dol’s, in a brotherly squeeze when the hour
of parting came. “I wish I was going on
with you. We’ve had a stunning good time
together, haven’t we? And we’ll run
across each other in these woods some time or other
again, I know! You’ll never feel satisfied
to stay in England, where there’s nothing to
hunt but hares and foxes, after chasing bears and
moose.”

“I’ve got the slip of birch-bark and the
horn safe in my knapsack, Doc,” Dol was saying
meanwhile, feeling his eyes getting leaky as he bade
farewell to the doctor. “I—­I’ll
keep them as long as I live.”

Doctor Phil had been as good as his word. He
had made Joe rip the slip of white bark, with the
rude writing on it, off the pine-tree near the swamp,
and had presented it to Dol ere the boy quitted his
camp.

“Well, confusion to partings anyhow!”
broke in Joe. “Don’t like ’em
a bit. Hope you’ll get that bear-skin safe
to England, Neal. When you show it to your folks
at home, tell ’em Joe Flint said he knew one
Britisher who would make a woodsman if he got a chance.
Don’t you forgit it.”

“Good-by,” said the doctor, as he clasped
in turn the hands of the departing three. “Good
luck to you, boys! Keep your souls as straight
as your bodies, and you’ll be a trio worth knowing.
We’ll meet again some day; I’m sure of
it.”

Martin and Will were chirping farewells, and lamenting
that they would have no more chances of studying water-snakes
in sedgy pools with Dol. Amid cheers and waving
of hats the campers separated.

“Forward, Company Three!” cried Cyrus
encouragingly, stepping briskly ahead, his comrades
following. “Now for a sight of the ‘Jabberwock’
of the forest, the mighty moose. Hurrah for the
wild woods and all woodsmen!”

CHAPTER XIV.

A LUCKY HUNTER.

Amid cracking of jokes, and noise which would have
disgraced a squad of Indians, “Company Three,”
as Cyrus dubbed his reduced band, reached the crowning-point
of their journey, the log camp on the shore of Millinokett
Lake.